


Early Morning

by Cornerverse



Series: EHSA AU [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 20-ish year time skip between chapters, F/M, Family Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:19:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerverse/pseuds/Cornerverse
Summary: Early morning with family can be the simplest, yet sweetest, of moments.





	1. Chapter 1

                It was early morning, the sun barely lighting the house in glowing orange. But that didn’t matter to Ed. He couldn’t go back to sleep, so he decided to find something else to do.

                Making sure not to wake Al as he left, he made his way through the house. He didn’t hear anyone else up. It was kind of strange, making the house seem empty. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been here completely alone.

                Shaking off that thought, he quietly checked the other rooms. No one in the kitchen or living room, and it looked like the bathroom was open too.

                Ed quietly poked his head into the study. Upon finding the room empty, he grinned and walked in. While they called it ‘the study’, the room was more like a small library. Bookshelves filled with texts and journals, all focusing on some branch of Alchemy.

                As golden eyes roved the shelves, he noticed something odd. Last time he was in here, he had made a mental note of a few books that looked interesting. As he tried to find them again, he found that all of them were in different places.

                Maybe Dad had decided to rearrange? Ed wasn’t quite sure what the new system was, but at least all the books he was looking for were easy to reach. While finding a way to get to the higher shelves wasn’t hard, he didn’t like being reminded that he couldn’t yet reach them. Curse the height of four year olds and everything about it.

                Ed grabbed one of the more journal-looking books. As he sat down to read it, he soon found himself glaring at the words. Of course he had the luck to pick a book in another language.

                Despite being unable to make heads or tails of the book, he wondered what language this one was. A few weeks ago Al had found a book like this, a textbook with a language that had an entirely different writing system. Mom said it was in ‘Xingese’, but Dad was the only one in the house who could read it.

                This book didn’t seem to be in ‘Xingese’. The letters looked pretty Amestrian, but none of the words themselves made any sense.

                Giving up on trying to make sense of the book, he put it back and grabbed another. This time he checked to make sure to check the language before settling down to read.

                “What are you doing up so early?”

                Ed jumped at the voice. He’d been so focused on the books that he hadn’t noticed he was no longer the only one awake. Looking up at the doorway, he saw Mom smiling down at him.

                “Just awake,” Ed shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

                “Alright then,” Mom answered. “I’m guessing Al is still in bed?”

                “He rolled when I left, but I think so,” he answered. “Want me to wake him up?”

                “I have a better idea,” she said, kneeling down to his level. “How about you help me get breakfast started? Then you can wake your brother while I try to get your dad up. If they don’t both come wandering in from the smell of pancakes, that is!”

                While the idea of pancakes did sound enticing, the other half of that sentence stuck out in his mind. He frowned down at the book he’d been reading.

                “He stayed up really late again, didn’t he?” Ed asked.

                “Just a bit,” Mom answered with a small smile. “He loses track of time. Especially when he’s focused.”

                “He shouldn’t,” he said.

                “Perhaps,” she said. “But I know someone else who often stays up too late reading. Or do you just think that the books you sneak out of here make good pillows?”

                She tapped his nose as she said it, and Ed could feel his ears burning as he stubbornly avoided eye contact. While he began to think of some kind of defense, she picked him up and started toward the kitchen.

                “I can walk there on my own,” Ed protested.

                Mom only hummed in acknowledgment. Despite Ed’s pouting, they both knew he didn’t mind being carried that much.

                She let him down once they got to the kitchen. While she grabbed various ingredients, Ed pushed a chair from the table up to the counter. Once more, he cursed how small he was compared to everything.

                He also knew that he wasn’t really much help. Making pancakes wasn’t exactly a two person job, unless you had one person mixing the batter and the other doing the actual cooking. But he was too young to be allowed to mess with the stove. Instead, Mom handed him the measuring cups and the bag of flour. Which was a mistake because he ended up covering the counter in white.

                After that disaster, he was content to watch as she added everything else. He made a face when she added milk to the mix, but begrudgingly admitted that the pancakes would be good despite that.

                As she stirred the batter, his mind wandered back to their earlier conversation. Dad had been staying up late a lot recently. While Mom had a point about him and Al doing the same sometimes, he wondered why Dad always looked so sad when he did.

                Ed didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand a lot of things Dad did sometimes. Maybe it was just because he was a kid, since Mom seemed to understand it. As long as they were happy about it, he wouldn’t worry about it too much.

                “Please don’t use Alchemy on the pancakes,” Mom said, already pouring batter into the hot pan.

                Snapping out of his thoughts, Ed looked back to the counter. Being fidgety as usual, he hadn’t realized he’d been tracing designs into the flour. Sure enough. The one he was half-way through drawing was one of the simple circles he’d already memorized.

                Honestly that circle would’ve done more to the counter than the pancakes, but he decided to not point that out. Instead, he quickly brushed the flour away. Then he had an idea.

                “Why can’t I use Alchemy on the pancakes?” Ed wondered.

                “You might be quick to learn, but I don’t think you’re quite up to that yet,” Mom answered.

                “Okay,” he pouted. “So why can’t we have Dad do it? Just put the ingredients in and transmute the batter into pancakes. It’d be a lot faster and easier, right?”

                “You know, I actually asked him something similar once,” she said.

                “Really?” he wondered. “What’d he say?”

                “A lot of technical terms that I didn’t understand,” she laughed. “But then he pointed out that, really, it’s not quite as fun. Sure, I could ask him to transmute up some pancakes and it’d be quick and easy. But then you and I wouldn’t be here having fun and making them.”

                “I guess that makes sense,” he said.

                “Besides, nothing wakes people up faster than smelling breakfast on the stove,” she said, looking past him and into the dining room. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

                Following her gaze, Ed saw that Dad had wandered in. Even if he didn’t already know he’d stayed up too late, it was easy to see. He was wearing the same outfit from yesterday, though far more wrinkled now. His hair was still a mess too, and he seemed to have forgotten his glasses somewhere.

                Overall he looked like he was still half-asleep. Mumbling something that sounded vaguely like ‘good morning’, he leaned against one of the dining room chairs.

                “Morning,” Mom greeted back. “We were just talking about you. Perhaps you can explain to Ed why we shouldn’t use Alchemy on the pancakes?”

                There wasn’t a reply. Ed glanced to Mom before looking to Dad again. Seeming to think the same thing, Mom took the pancakes off the heat before walking over. She poked the side of his face, but he didn’t even flinch.

                Ed giggled a little at that. What kind of grown man falls asleep standing up? He quieted down a bit when Mom gave him a look. It was one he knew well. The ‘I’m going to do something funny but if you try this on Al you’re going in time-out’ look.

                Moving to the other side, she swiftly pulled the chair away. Ed laughed even harder watching Dad slam face-first into the floor. He muttered something that Ed didn’t quite catch, but the tone was enough to tell that he was definitely awake now.

                “Well then,” Mom said, looking to him with a grin. “How about you go check on Al?”

                Ed hopped off the chair, still laughing as he ran down the hall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Around 20-ish years later, some things can repeat themselves.

                Ed thought he had been first to wake up. Figuring that he should at least get the coffee going, he made his way down to the kitchen.

                He didn’t expect the toaster to catch fire as soon as he walked in. Although, given his luck, he wasn’t entirely surprised.

                Biting back a swear, he unplugged the toaster and used his left leg to nudge it across the counter and into the sink. Once it was away from anything else to set on fire, he turned on the tap and let it die out.

                “Dad, your pants are on fire.”

                Quickly smothering the small flame on the hem of his pants, Ed turned his attention to the blue eyes staring up at him.

                “Seren, what happened to the toaster?” Ed asked.

                “I don’t know,” Seren shrugged. “I wanted toast.”

                Knowing Seren, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he’d actually been trying to dismantle to toaster to see how it works. It did look like he was telling the truth though.

                “Fair,” Ed nodded. “Since we can’t have toast, how about we find a different breakfast?”

                “Pancakes?” Seren suggested, an excited grin coming to his face.

                “I think we can handle that,” he said.

                While Seren climbed into one of the dining room chairs, Ed went about getting breakfast set up. He tried not to make a face getting milk out of the fridge. While he had been glad to discover the world of milk-alternatives, most recipes worked best with real milk.

                Getting the flour and mixing bowls out, he looked over to Seren at the table.

                “You want to help?” Ed asked.

                “I just set the toaster on fire, but you want me to help?” Seren said.

                “Well, you won’t be messing with the stove this time?” he replied.

                He set up the rest of the stuff while Seren pushed the chair to the counter. Handing him the measuring cups, he let him handle that while he heated the pan.

                It wasn’t the worst job of making pancake batter he’d seen. Flour ended up on the counter, and the batter was a little too thin the first time around. Nothing a bit more flour couldn’t fix. Even if that messed up the counter even more.

                The first pancake hit the pan and it already started to smell fantastic.

                “Could you make pancakes with Alchemy?” Seren wondered.

                Ed stopped and looked down at him for a moment. The question surprised him a little bit, mostly due to who it came from. While all the kids had an interest in Alchemy, Seren was the least likely to ask outright questions. He tended to prefer the ‘test it out on my own’ technique.

                Maybe the toaster had taught him that asking could help sometimes.

                “Did I ask a bad question?” Seren asked.

                “No, it’s not a ‘bad’ question,” Ed said. “There aren’t any bad questions.”

                “But you’re making the face again?” he said.

                “What face?” he wondered.

                “That one,” he replied, gesturing up at him. “It’s the one you make when whenever Miss Blakesly has to call you in for a – yeah, that’s the face.”

                Okay, maybe he was making a face. While Seren seemed to think it was anger or exasperation, to Ed it was more amusement with a little bit of bittersweet nostalgia. That had been coming up more often lately.

                The kids didn’t really have a frame of reference for some of the ‘weird’ things in their lives. Which meant they sometimes said odd things. From casually talking about some very important people being family members, to that time one of them said ‘Uncle Al was a suit of armor for a few years, but he’s fine now!’. That led to a number of parent-teacher meetings, and even more attempting to explain.

                “It’s not a bad question,” Ed repeated, shaking off the weirdness. “In fact, when I was around your age I asked my mom the same thing.”

                “What’d she say?” Seren asked.

                “That it’s not as fun,” he answered.

                “Huh?” he said.

                “It’s not as fun,” he said. “Sure, we could make pancakes with Alchemy. But we don’t have to. It might be a faster method, but if I did, then we wouldn’t be having fun making them.”

                “I guess?” he shrugged. “Is it really that big of a deal?”

                “Even something simple like pancakes can be a big deal,” he said. “If we’d used Alchemy to make pancakes that day, then I wouldn’t have the memory of spending time together and making them, now would I?”

                “You’d have a memory of making pancakes with Alchemy instead,” he said.

                “Exactly,” he said. “The ‘how’ isn’t as important as the ‘who’. It’s better to do something with people you care about than it is to just do it in a faster way. The connection you make is more important than how quickly you can do it.”

                For a moment, Seren nodded in thought. Then, an almost sly smile came to his face.

                “So,” Seren mused. “What you’re saying is that if I’m spending time with my friends, I don’t have to clean my room?”

                “Nice try, kiddo,” Ed snickered. “But you still have to do that.”

                “Of course,” he groaned.

                “Now, how about you go wake everyone up?” he said.

                “Okay!” he said, quickly climbing down and heading out of the kitchen.

                “Do it nicely!” he shouted after him. “No pushing anyone off the bed or screaming!”

                “Alright!” he answered.

                As he continued with the pancakes, he listened just in case. Thankfully he didn’t hear any screams or thuds. Just a few sets of shuffling, half-asleep footsteps. It was another one of those small moments that seem so insignificant, yet still made him smile like an idiot.

                By the time he had a decent stack of pancakes set up, he heard someone make their way to the kitchen. He didn’t jump when he felt a hug from behind and a face pressing in between his shoulder blades.

                He had expected to hear ‘good morning’ or ‘thanks for the pancakes’. But of course...

                “Why’s the toaster in the sink?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: I've actually had the scene of Seren setting the toaster on fire planned for MONTHS, I just never had an excuse to use it until now.
> 
> Fun Fact 2: While this is Canon Compliant, it is also part of a Canon-Divergent AU I have planned.


End file.
